WASHINGTON: A pro-Russia congressman offered to tell the White House who provided WikiLeaks with hacked Clinton campaign e-mails in exchange for the US dropping its probe into the group’s leader Julian Assange, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered a “deal” in which Assange would furnish electronic evidence that would exculpate Russia as the source of the e-mails published last year by the anti-secrecy organization that did significant damage to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential run.
In exchange, the Journal said, Rohrabacher was seeking for Assange “a pardon or other act of clemency from President Donald Trump,” it said.
The US Justice Department has acknowledged investigating Assange and WikiLeaks for the release of a series of top secret US documents and computer hacking tools as well as the Clinton e-mails.
No charges have been unveiled. But Washington is widely believed to have asked London to arrest and extradite the Australian if he steps out of his refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he has lived for five years.
US intelligence officials have blamed Russia for the theft of Clinton campaign communications and documents last year as part of a deliberate effort to hurt her chances as president. They allege that WikiLeaks, in publishing the documents, knowingly acted in concert with Russian intelligence, and have branded it a “hostile intelligence service.”
WikiLeaks has denied that the source of the material was the Russian government, but stresses it will never divulge the sources of the information in gets.
The Journal said Rohrabacher confirmed that he spoke to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly this week but would not say what was discussed.
Rohrabacher visited Assange in London in August and afterwards said he was seeking a meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss his case.
Rohrabacher told conservative commentator Sean Hannity’s radio show that the assertion that Russia hacked the US election last year was a “con job” to undermine the Trump administration.
Congressman offered White House deal to let off Assange: report
Congressman offered White House deal to let off Assange: report
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
